Aid workers under fire in Sudan

As Sudan's civil war reaches its deadliest phase, the humanitarian aid agencies working in the county are increasingly coming under attack. The government wants to prevent the world hearing about the conflict, says aid worker
Sam Farmar

As Africa's longest civil war intensifies, aid agencies are increasingly being attacked in Sudan. In the last fortnight, the forces of the northern-based Sudanese government have bombed the compounds of two notable aid organisations; The International Rescue Committee and Doctors Without Borders.

Teodi Lotto, an official of the Southern Sudanese Roman Catholic Church reported that nine civilians were killed and 5 others seriously wounded when government Antinovs bombed a village just outside Kapoeta, a key southern garrison recently captured by The Sudanese Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) from government forces. Aid workers reported that no member of the SPLA forces where said to be in the area at the time. In the same week a church and school in Malwalkon was bombed killing a further four civilians and injuring another seven as was a church compound in Ikotos, Eastern Equatoria.

For the government to bomb civilians - or for that matter aid organisations - is nothing new. But there is now an increased frequency of bombing aimed at both civilians and humanitarian groups - and this often takes place in areas far from the front line and established areas of humanitarian operations. The evidence suggests a disturbing intensification of a war which has already claimed two million lives and seen another four million southern Sudanese refugees displaced from their homes.

I first experienced 'ariel bombardment' when working in Western Upper Nile, a barren and inhospitable area that has experienced the full brunt of two decades of war. I was carrying our an assesmment of the area and working alongside the World Food Program, who where engaged in an emergency airdrop, where food supplies are simply rolled out of cargo doors a thousand feet off the ground. The Hercules was clearly marked with the unmistakeable initials UN, but a government Antonov in hot pursuit circled overhead and began bombing.

Just before the bombs dropped, I had been messing around with a handful of kids, no more than five years old. As the bombs rained down I instinctively dropped to ground, the kids immediately followed suit. For the next five minutes we lay with our fingers in our ears staring at each other, alarmingly they never stopped smiling through out. As the drown of the Antinovs began to fade, the villagers simply got on with their tasks - pounding grain and collecting water. Nobody would have thought that anything out of the ordinary had happened - I got the impression that this was simply because being bombed wasn't that unusual.

Six months later I found myself in almost exactly the same scenario, but this time we weren't quite so lucky. Nine women and children were killed. Our frantic complaints brought an official government apology - an announcement that they had made an unfortunate mistake. But this was no mistake. Under Operation Lifeline Sudan, the name given to the UN consortium to which we complied, we were obliged to inform the government weeks in advance of our where about and our intentions on ground. They even had our GPS coordinates.

During a similar food distribution in Western Upper Nile earlier this year two helicopter gunships directed machine-gun fire and numerous rockets into a crowd mainly made up of women and children. The faces of the pilot and gunner could be clearly seen from the ground; the gunner and pilot, in turn, could clearly see that they were firing on non-combatants. The clear intention was to kill civilians gathered for food aid and to disrupt humanitarian relief.

Since this incident the government have banned almost all aid flights in to the Upper Nile regions, denying critical supplies to approximately 1.7 million people. There is only one explanation. The international humanitarian agencies are the witness to the world. Denying them access silences the cries of outrage.

The aid agencies must comply with the wishes of the host country, even if they make no attempt to fulfil their part of the bargain; by respecting the UN Declaration of human rights. The EU's expressions of grave concern about the escalating humanitarian crisis, calling for 'unrestricted, immediate access by international humanitarian agencies to assist these populations' falls on deaf ears.

For years, this gruesome has seen war sees the bombs loaded on to government helicopters and planes on the same airstrips on which the aid organisations are loading emergency food supplies. Both sets of planes have set off on their daily sorties with vastly differing missions before them. Now even these attempts to relieve a little of Sudan's suffering are under threat.

There are some efforts towards peace in Sudan. Faltering peace talks began last week under the auspices of The Inter-Government Authority on Development (IGAD). They remain the best hope of ending two generations of civil war - for all of the flaw in the process, this is the only agreement that has been signed by both parties.

But it will take much greater international engagement to create effective pressure towards peace. The bombings and flight bans are increasingly silencing the voice of the humanitarian agencies. But the international oil companies which continue to operate in Sudan could exercise real leverage for change: "black gold", as it is known, is at the centre of this conflict and Sudan's regional divisions. How much longer will the multinationals look the other way?

The Observer website carries additional online commentary each week in the Comment and Observer Worldview pages, responding to recent pieces to continue the debate and offering additional coverage of the major issues. The online pieces are also trailed in the print pages of the newspaper.